


Gentle Breeze (Nothing More)

by OverMyFreckledBody



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Denial, Dorms, Gen, Ghosts, Light Horror, Scared Ryan Bergara, Unsettling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 20:44:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverMyFreckledBody/pseuds/OverMyFreckledBody
Summary: They say this campus is cursed, haunted. Shane says they’re all superstitious and full of shit.(Which means, of course, Ryan has to go and see himself a ghost. Right in their dorm room.)





	Gentle Breeze (Nothing More)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on some first-hand stories I was told today.

                Bored doesn’t even begin to cover what Shane is feeling. There’s nothing good playing on TV right now, but that’s all he has, unless he actually wants to get started on his classwork. Which, he doesn’t.

 

                So, he watches TV.

 

                He’s laying back on his bed with his feet hanging off the edge, ignoring the knowledge that too long like this and he’ll hurt his neck. With his foot, he’s rolling around one of Ryan’s basketballs, making long, lazy loops. He hopes he isn’t scuffing it with his shoe, because he knows Ryan will bitch about it, but he doesn’t care enough to check, or to stop.

 

                The sitcom playing cues up a generic laugh track for a joke that wasn’t even funny. Bored. He’s so bored.

 

                He loops the basketball again.

 

                Then, out of nowhere, the hairs on the back of his neck stand, and he finds himself sitting up. He doesn’t know why he wants to sit up, but he also doesn’t have any reason… not to.

 

                He glances over at the window, quickly forgetting about it. Huh. It’s open, but it isn’t particularly cold, or windy. Maybe it was just a weird bodily reaction. Those happen sometimes.

 

                He looks down at the basketball at his feet that he’s stopped messing with. Yet, despite him leaving it be, it’s started… to move.

 

                All on its own.

 

                “Huh,” he says, out loud this time. That’s certainly strange.

 

                He watches it, mind blank, as it loops, and loops, similar to the ovals that he was making earlier. Except, instead of moving one way and then the other, the ball rolls further away from him. It rolls and he watches, still sitting up, head cocked, until it stops under the window.

 

                He’s struck with the thought that it’s waiting for him to come and pick it up.

 

                “Nope,” he says, not getting up. In fact, he hasn’t moved since he sat upwards. “You’re going to have to roll that back to me.”

 

                And mysteriously, the ball rolls itself back, bumping once against his foot, before halting.

 

                Huh.

 

                That’s kinda weird.

 

                His phone buzzes, and he looks away from the basketball to read it. It’s a friend, asking if he wants to go meet up for tacos. Yeah, he’ll do that. He likes tacos.

 

                He pulls himself to his feet and heads out, locking the door behind him. The whole incident is quickly forgotten. There isn’t any point to telling anybody about it – they’d probably claim it was one of “ghosts” that “haunt” the campus. It was probably just the wind moving the ball, anyway.

 

                (His mind made up also means there’s no point thinking about the fact that none of the papers on their desks moved, or that wind doesn’t take items _towards_ open windows.)

 

* * *

 

 

                It’s still dark when Shane wakes up, some nights after. In fact, it’s still the middle of the night when he blinks open his eyes. He should still be sleeping. Damn, why is he awake?

 

                The answer to that comes in a whisper of his name. Or, really, in fact, a repeated, panicked whisper, over and over, “Shane! _Shane!_ ”

 

                A sense of urgency cuts through the grogginess, and Shane flips over to see what has Ryan freaking out like that on him, at who-knows-o’clock at night. What he sees is Ryan, back pushed up against the wall, knees pulled to his chest. His eyes, staring ahead of him – towards the window? – are wide, too wide, that way they get when he’s about one jump scare away from pissing himself.

 

                “What is it?” Shane asks, though his voice is much louder than Ryan’s whispers.

 

                Ryan doesn’t even look at him. He continues to stare out ahead, and now he’s visibly shaking. When he does speak, it’s, “Can you see it?”

 

                “Can you see _him_?”

 

                “What? See what?” Shane mutters, but Ryan doesn’t appear to be listening, as he just repeats himself, another _can you see him?_ , but maybe Shane is still too tired for this, but he can’t see shit. Especially not, in the dark, without his glasses.

 

                Thankfully, the light switch is right next to him, so he can fix one of those problems. He slaps at it, lighting up the room within a second. He blinks away the black spots that fill his vision as his pupils adjust, but then he is able to turn around again and finally check out what the hell Ryan is talking about.

 

                Except, when he looks in the direction that Ryan was, Shane sees absolutely nothing.

 

                What the hell?

 

                He looks back at Ryan, about to ask what the fuck is going on, but the words die on his tongue when he sees Ryan staring back at him. His eyes are wet, like he’s seconds from crying, still wide and horrified.

 

                “ _He’s gone_.”

 

                “Ryan,” he starts slowly, scared that one wrong move is going to spook the man. “What did you see?”

 

* * *

 

 

                When Shane steps into his own dorm room, there’s someone else there. He pauses in the doorway, surprised, because, really, wouldn’t Ryan tell him if he was supposed to find somewhere else to sleep for the night? Or at least put a sock on the door?

 

                The guy, upon Shane entering, stands up with a roll of his eyes and a sigh. “Finally,” he mutters, and grabs his bag on his way out.

 

                Shane steps out of his way, still a little confused, and turns to Ryan, who is studiously staring down at his papers instead. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, “What was that about?”

 

                Ryan’s shoulders hunch up. His words are muffled when he speaks, “I don’t want to be in here alone anymore.”

 

                Now it’s Shane’s turn to sigh. “Is it because of that shadow you saw?”

 

                At this, Ryan twists around abruptly in his seat to yell back, “It wasn’t a shadow! It wasn’t… a _person_.”

 

                Man, has he heard this already. Too many times.

 

                Shane sits down heavily onto his bed and begins to pull off his coat. “Yeah,” he agrees sarcastically, watching the way Ryan frowns at him. “It was a ghost. A little boy sitting on the edge of your bed, watching you sleep. Because that’s what little ghost boys do.”

 

                It’s a good thing ghosts don’t exist, because that would be awful if true.

 

                Ryan licks his lips and pauses for a long moment. “I saw him again,” he whispers, tone dead serious, _he_ _believes it_ , the exact same as that night. “He was standing by the window.”

 

                Shane flicks a glance at the window, as if the boy will still be there. Of course, there is nothing out of the ordinary. Ordinary window, ordinary walls, ordinary sight. It isn’t that Shane doesn’t believe that Ryan saw something. It’s just that he doesn’t believe that Ryan saw what he _thinks_ he saw.

 

                They say this campus is cursed, haunted. Shane says they’re all superstitious and full of shit. Or, he doesn’t say it, because that would be rude, but he certainly doesn’t believe any of it.

 

                “Right,” Shane replies, finally, as Ryan’s been staring at him, waiting while he said nothing. At this answer, Ryan looks at him for a second longer before he shakes his head and turns back to his papers.

 

                “I know you don’t believe me,” he mumbles, and Shane feels awfully guilty. “But I know what I saw.”

 

                “I know, buddy,” Shane tries, but when Ryan doesn’t reply, he thinks he might have came across as a little patronizing. He attempts changing the topic, “Want to get some tacos, later?”

 

                He’s been in the mood for tacos a lot, as of late.

 

                Ryan makes him wait for a few, long seconds, before he sighs and pushes his papers all to one corner. “Want to grab them now? We can study while we eat.”

 

                Shane feels like he’s lost something here, but when Ryan looks up at him, it appears that the agitation from the previous conversation has melted off him, completely. Shane isn’t sure if he trusts that it truly has, but he’ll roll with it for now.

 

                “Sounds like a plan.”

 

* * *

 

 

                Ryan still won’t enter the room on his own, but over the past few months, they’ve found ways to get used to that. It isn’t surprising to find Ryan’s friends in the room anymore, and Shane’s actually gotten to know a couple of them. It also isn’t surprising to find the room empty, meaning he’s studying elsewhere, or hanging out outside of the room, either.

 

                Shane has found himself spending more time inside their room, too, just so Ryan can, and by consequence, his grades have actually improved. He spends more time doing his homework before the last second, and bored, studying.

 

                Today is one of those days.

 

                He’s sitting at his desk, Ryan on his own bed, and he’s actually getting a nice chunk of this paper done. However, that also means that the laptop screen is starting to bug his eyes. He pulls off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose, and leans away from the desk as he squeezes his eyes shut.

 

                He opens them, fingers still held up in the space between his eyes, when he hears the sound of something moving on his desk. What he sees is his pencil, rolling across the flat desk, from no obvious source of anything moving it.

 

                This feels like another one of those _huh_ moments. So. Huh.

 

                “Give it back.”

 

                He can hear Ryan shift behind him, likely turning around, thinking Shane was talking to him.

 

                And in front of him, the pencil rolls back across the desk, perfectly back to where it was before.

 

                Huh.

 

                “What the fu-”

 

                “There’s no such things as ghosts, Ryan,” Shane says, before that tirade can start up. The window, open, lets through a breeze all at once that brushes against Shane’s open skin. “It’s just the wind.”

 

                (Outside, the leaves on the trees don’t move. In fact, the world itself is still, as if there’s no wind at all.)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!


End file.
